We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not
commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther
and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were
never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We
have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes
veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a
little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike
by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never
existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others;
nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the
consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to
suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any
help from the State, to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any
alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the
Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.

—Charles H. Spurgeon

Christian history, in the
First Century, was strictly and properly Baptist history, although the word
"Baptist," as a distinctive appellation was not then known. How could it be?
How was it possible to call any Christians Baptist Christians, when all were
Baptists?"

The first known Baptist
Congregation was formed by a number of these fleeing separatists in
Amsterdam, Holland in 1608. It was largely made up of British persons led by
John Smyth who along with Thomas Helwys, sought to set up the group
according to New Testament patterns. As they saw it, it was important to
'reconstitute' and not just 'reform' the Church. There was emphasis placed
on personal conversion and on baptism, which was to be given to individuals
who had personally professed faith in Jesus Christ, that is, to believers
only and on mutual covenanting between and among believers. Though taking
some years to crystallize, the reconstituting efforts of Smyth, Helwys and
others gave distinctive shape not only to the group's belief and practice,
but the various others which emerged from it. Some affiliated groups started
when members of the Amsterdam group went back to Britain and took the name
'Baptist' to identify themselves. This had to do with the distinctive
approach to the meaning and mode of baptism.

With the continuing
religious and civil disturbances, and with the new awareness in Europe of
North America, many persons, including those influenced by Baptists and
related beliefs, practices and groups, crossed the Atlantic to build a 'New
World'. They sought not only to establish dwellings, but their faith as
well. In time the entire continent, but particularly the Eastern section,
was affected, Baptist Churches, being among the many institutions, which
sprang up in the seventeenth century. All these shaped not only the new
American Environment, but eventually impacted beyond it as well.

—William Cathcart, Baptist Historian/Author

The American Baptists deny
that they owe their origin to Roger Williams. The English Baptists will not
grant that John Smyth or Thomas Helwysse was their founder. The Welsh
Baptists strenuously contend that they received their creed in the first
century, from those who obtained it, direct, from the apostles themselves.
The Dutch Baptists trace their spiritual pedigree up to the same source.
German Baptists maintained that they were older than the reformation, older
than the corrupt hierarchy which it sought to reform. The Waldensian
Baptists boasted an ancestry far older than Waldo, older than the most
ancient of their predecessors in the Vales of Piedmont. All these maintain
that it ultimately reappears, and reveals their source in Christ and His
apostles."

John T. Christian,
A.M. D.D. LL.DProfessor of Christian History in The Baptist Bible
Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana.
A History of the Baptists Together with Some Account of Their Principles and
PracticesVolume 1Volume 2

John Q. AdamsBaptists, The Only Thorough Reformers
(an American Baptist pastor who was a contemporary of C.H. Spurgeon).
Spurgeon used "Baptists Thorough Reformers" as a text book in his Pastor's
College, regarding it as the best Manual of Baptist principles he had met."

Phillip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, 8 Volumes
This material has been carefully compared, corrected¸ and amended (according
to the 1910 edition of Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible
Society, Dallas, TX, 1998.

Brethren Revival Fellowship (BRF) is a concern
movement within the Church of the Brethren, seeking to
call the Church to a firm stand for the authority of the
Scriptures, and to an emphasis upon the teachings of the
New Testament as historically understood by the
Brethren.

"Wylie's 'The History of Protestantism' is the
best history extant. I welcome its republishing.
Read it. Study it. Circulate it. And by so doing
you will help to dispel the dark cloud of priestly
superstition, popish idolatry and papal tyranny
encircling our land."
Ian Paisley

The
Nobla Lecon, (Noble Lesson)
The "Noble Lesson" written in the Language of the
ancient inhabitants of the Valleys (The Waldenses); in
the Year 1100. Extracted out of a most authentic
manuscript, the true original whereof is to be seen in
the public library of the famous University of
Cambridge. "The History of the Evangelical Churches of
the Valleys of Piedmont." by Samuel Morland. 1658.
CHRAA. 1982. p.99

This little book is sent forth for the purpose
of making known the little-known
history of those FAITHFUL WITNESSES of the
Lord Jesus, who, as members of the CHURCH
JESUS BUILT, "Overcame Satan by the blood of
the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony:
and they loved not their lives unto death,"
Rev. 12:11. (Historical events are
entirely the work of the author and are not to
be intended by The Reformed Reader as a
definitive source for historical fact)

The 'Early Church Fathers Series in
WinHelp Format' is a 37-volume electronic
collection of writings from the first 800
years of the Church. This collection is
divided into three series, Ante-Nicene,
Nicene and Post-Nicene Series I, and
Nicene and Post-Nicene Series II.
These writings include apologetics,
biblical commentary (mainly by St.
Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, the
Golden Mouthed), sermons, treatises,
letters, liturgies, poems and hymns,
dialogues, ascetic writings, Church canons
and history